Payback
by Leslie Emm
Summary: In answer to Kates89 Events Challenge. I got Lucy Messer, Aiden Burn and an engagement party. This was not easy...


**Payback**

_This is for Kates89 Events Challenge. I got Lucy Messer, Aiden Burn and an engagement party. This is what my mind gave me...This was so beeping hard! It's not my greatest work but it has certainly made me think outside the box! At some points I wondered if there _was_ a box!_

...

Walking through the night never bothered Lucy Messer one bit. She had been taught to defend herself from the word go. She often joked to her friends at work that if her 'family' were to pull out of the NYPD all at the same time, it would collapse.

Her parents were still working, with a few years to clock up until retirement. Her mother gracefully accepting the lead role as Head of the Crime Lab when her God father retired. Her father had long since made another lateral move into the private sector, for more money. But – he was contracted back to the NYPD and worked right there alongside her mother as he always had.

Although he retired from the Crime lab, Mac Taylor had remained on the payroll of the NYPD as an advisor to those high up, he was sought after, and often heard to complain he had less time to enjoy his retirement than if he'd stayed on at the lab.

Her fathers best friend Don was a Captain at the precinct he'd always worked at, and Lucy had always known that as an ADA, he came to her first. Thanks to him she had prosecuted some of the most high profile cases in the last few years, and it had made an impact on her career.

Adam and Sheldon provided her with hot coffee and sound advice when she headed to the crime lab in the course of her duties, needing unbiased and scientific view points on cases.

Jo seemed to drop in and out of the group since she took early retirement, commanding everyone's attention when she returned from her long spells travelling the world, ensuring that all the old 'gang' as she called them as well as wives, husbands and children and in some cases, grandchildren all got together.

And Sid, ah Sid. Lucy loved 'Uncle' Sid. He had made facing dead bodies so much easier. The man should have retired before she was even admitted to the bar, but somehow he never seemed to have changed from the first memories she had of him.

Lucy Messer loved her life, and her extended family and as she opened the door to the bar she was heading to, she considered herself lucky. Her fathers friend and colleague Adam, was getting engaged _finally_, and she intended to enjoy the party to the full. They were all there, the people she considered her family and she looked forward to spending some time with them in a relaxed setting. Not to mention taking the credit for getting the shy and shaggy haired CSI together with the clerk who diligently worked in her office day and night.

…...

Three hours later Lucy staggered her way through a side door. She was having a _great_ time, maybe a little too good if she were honest. Standing in the archway, sheltered from the rain she didn't see the man until it was too late.

Her head reeled from alcohol and the blow he aimed at her and she fell to her knees. Intimidating hands hauled her forward but Lucy was powerless to resist as they did. She smelled paint and felt the adhesive sting of tape binding her wrists.

"Fight bitch" a voice told her, a voice that she was instinctively terrified of "It makes it more fun"

Lucy gasped as memories flooded her mind. The things she'd heard and seen, the advice she'd heard and absorbed. But none of it helped.

"Let her go" a voice warned.

Lucy tried to see but she couldn't, she did feel herself dropped painfully onto wet asphalt.

"No.." the voice that had inspired terror moments ago now rang with it.

"I said let her go" the voice was a woman's, strong and sure and Lucy trusted it.

"But you...this is impossible" the voice of her attacker was close, but scared. Lucy felt relief flood through her, she was saved.

"When I told you that I'd get you" the woman sneered "You didn't think I'd ever stop did you?"

Silence greeted her statement and as Lucy's mind started to clear she caught a vision of dark hair and a defiant expression.

Suddenly the world erupted again. There was shouting and a gun shot, and her mothers arms around her, begging her to be OK, to wake up.

"I'm OK mom" Lucy whispered "She...she made him let me go"

"He's dead..." she heard Don say, painfully craning her neck to watch him stow his gun as he straightened from checking a pulse that was no longer there.

"You OK sweetie?" her father demanded urgently, and Lucy was surrounded by those who loved her most in the world. They removed the tape and helped her sit up, but she wasn't there, the face that had saved her.

"Where...is she?" she asked in a low whisper.

"Who?" Mac asked her.

"The woman, she was here, told him to let me go...I thought she must have come and got someone..."

"There's no one else here" Danny soothed "You came out and he attacked you, the door you came out of banged in the wind as Don walked past, he went to close it and saw you...there was only you and him..."

"No!" Lucy protested "The woman...she was here, she told him that she...she had said she'd get him and she'd never stop..."

She didn't see the look that passed between Mac and Don as they checked the dead man's ID, but Danny did.

"What?" he demanded of them.

"You know who this is?" Mac asked quietly.

"Some asshole tried to kill my daughter?!" Danny snarled.

"Danny, it's DJ Pratt" Mac told him.

"What?!" Danny was on his feet and took the ID "I had no idea he was out..."

"Neither did I" Don said quietly "I'm gonna kick some asses, because _him_ on the loose, I needed to know"

The three men stood looking at the lifeless figure on the ground, blood still oozing from the bullet wound straight to his heart.

Mac hunkered down in front of Lucy and she focussed on him.

"The woman" he asked "Can you give me a description?"

"Dark hair" Lucy managed "Long, she was pretty...I think. But it was her voice, she scared him Mac, he was terrified of her"

Again the three seasoned detectives shared a look and Lucy frowned at them.

"Do you know her?" she asked "Can you find her?"

"No" he said finally and turned away as Sheldon tended her wound and Lindsay rubbed her hands for comfort.

She saw her father stare towards the end of the alley, and saw the tears in his eyes. They didn't match the look of grateful grief on his face. He turned and smiled at her.

"You're OK" he said "That's what matters"

"You know her don't you?" Lucy said quietly and then something occurred to her "It's not windy"

"It's not" he agreed "And yes, I knew her, this is just her style"

…...

_This was so hard, and I tried to keep away from the obvious but everything else I wrote just got more and more ridiculous...but well it's done. _


End file.
